Jane Fonda Remembers Mentoring Meryl Streep

In her latest film, This Is Where I Leave You, Jane Fonda plays the matriarch of a grieving family, and thusly, spent her time on set surrounded by younger and less experienced actors. And in a new interview, Good Morning Americaasked the 76-year-old Oscar winner how it felt to find herself—54 years after her first film role—in a position to mentor her co-stars. The actress replied bluntly—“I didn’t see myself as a mentor, but enough other people tell me so, so I guess I am”—before remembering the days when she was in a position to be mentored by some of old Hollywood’s greats.

“I was close to Bette Davis,” she recalled. “I was close to Barbara Stanwyck [and] Katharine Hepburn. And why didn’t I ask them endless questions? ‘What do you do when you are nervous? How do you overcome fear?’ And I didn’t!” Then, the actress revealed that—regardless of how many people cite Fonda as a mentor—there was only one actress who asked her the kind of hard questions she wished she had asked Davis and Hepburn. “You know the only person who has ever asked me those kinds of questions? And of course it would be her: Meryl Streep.”

Earlier this year, Streep acknowledged Fonda’s career coaching—which began on the set of the 1977 drama, Julia—while paying tribute to Fonda at the AFI Lifetime Achievment Award ceremony this past July. “I was so nervous because all of my scenes were going to be with you,” Streep confessed to her mentor. “[Fonda] had this almost feral alertness, like this bright blue attentiveness to everything that was around her that was completely intimidating—and made me feel like I was lumpy and from New Jersey, which . . . I am.” During her first day on a film set ever, Streep recalled how she tried to riff on the script’s dialogue and direction. It was then that Fonda put Streep in her place, figuratively and literally. Streep remembered Fonda telling her: “Look down . . . over there, that green tape on the floor, that’s you. That’s your mark. And if you land on it, you will be in the light and you will be in the movie.”

Streep also credits Fonda for recommending her for roles after Julia, and for “open[ing] probably more doors than I probably even know about.” In honor of Fonda’s kindness, Streep said during her speech that she has continued Fonda’s tradition by mentoring other young performers. “I thank you for [your guidance],” she told Fonda during the speech. “And all of the young actors I’ve worked with subsequently, in the years following, thank you too, because that lesson and kindness got passed down. And it does keep going.”